Meh.

This is something I did for English 324.

Loneliness!!!!!!! YES PLEASE!

I, Robinson Crusoe, like to be by myself so much I enjoy writing about myself would like to examine myself to better understand my situation of loneliness and how I’ve dealt with it. Prior to my island “landing”, I had not dealt with much loneliness. From the story of my life as I started out on my journey I have been surrounded by family and lived in comfort. It is only when he experiences solitude on his island that he learning to accept and cherish my loneliness. Spoilers, later on I even leave the life of company and returns to my happy lonely island.

Throughout the beginning of my story and well into my arrival on my island I was constantly fighting the companionship of others. In the beginning of the story you can see me starting my journey into happy loneliness as I abandon my father. This is not only upheld throughout the earlier parts of the story, but also enriched as I gets rid of other helpful characters such as my fellow slave-mate turned “friend” during my escape from the Turks..

One of the most interesting things about me and my loneliness is how much I lean on it. Later on in the story I find a foot print years and years after living I have been living alone on the island. Through the sudden appearance of what could be another person my loneliness was threatened and I locked myself away for days before finally re-releasing myself back unto the island.

I feel as though my solidarity of living alone was threatened at this time. How could I, nay, how would I face anything other than living alone in this wonderful deserted place? I would not, could not bear the sight of another human being, though I have forgotten what it was like to be among men following my long absence among people. What was most concerning to me about this whole ordeal was the fact that things may change due to the introduction of a new character.

If I must say something about my own loneliness, it is this: I have been and always will be happy within my loneliness.  I fear the day I have to face people again and if you’ve read what I have told, then you will see that is so true I cannot avoid being fated to that lonely place I like to call home. Even that place has no name because in doing so would allow me to relate to the island in such a way that might take away some of the loneliness. If only more people could learn that this truly is the way to live.

I picked a random paper... It seems this one was sort of narrative by Robinson Crusoe. I'm not sure but apparently when I write this way I have an utter lack of brush strokes. I've highlighted all I think should be passive and abstract subject.Let me know if anything is amiss.

City Heist

Participle

Absolute

Appositive

Adjective

Passive

Active

The city my mom works for was hacked this week. More than $450,000 was stolen from their accounts by hackers. I found this to be an interesting fact as the amount of effort put into the heist was actually quite substantial. The other factor in the robbery was that in order to access the accounts, either the city’s computer would be needed or access from within a bank of America, the city’s account holder, would have needed to be accessed. I’m sure the city’s employees came to work much like any other day, Organized, Focused and Sincere, before finding out they day’s operations were to be put on hold due to the misfortune they suffered.

What made the story even more interesting was that the U.S. Secret Service has also opened an investigation into the matter, actively seeking the culprits responsible, while maintaining a low profile. The city next door is also assisting in the investigation, but that was not quite as impressive when compared to the Secret Service. According to my mom and official statements, the city moved all of their accounts out of Bank of America, as well as all employee accounts, to ensure that the compromised accounts could not be targeted again. The official word of the moment is that the money will be returned, unscathed and unharmed, leaving city business will continue as normal.

Anyway, from what I can tell about the heist is that it was a big job. Multiple states and accounts around the US and now around the world were used to bounce money all around to what I assume is an undisclosed location seeing as how someone hasn't been arrested yet. It is not mentioned in the article and unknown to my source whether the money in the account is insured. This to me seems like a tricky situation for the bank and the city to figure out where reimbursement comes from if not –given their anti-fraud/theft statements. If you’re interested at all here’s a link to the short article and 2 minute primetime report, though, it’s hardly anything too amazing. http://www.king5.com/home/Hackers-steal-more-than-450000-from-City-of-Burlington-174045801.html

I didn’t really label an active agent as pretty much most the sentences I wrote are active as opposed to the obvious passive. If I need to specifically mention one, we’ll use the first sentence of my second paragraph. If you see anything strange, correct, wrong, think the story is dumb, or had your life changed by reading this – please feel free to leave a comment. Cheers.

Random game turned story

Participle

Absolute

Appositives

Adjectives

In the realm of Nicolten, a land of fierce raging conflict, a battle that took place among the Sinnista Mountains shook the continent and forever changed the lands. This particular realm was made completely of mountains. Neither a single plain nor forest existed amount the rugged landscape.

A steel construct named Chrono, stoic and relentless, was aimlessly roaming the mountainside.

Nearby a group of unsuspecting goblins, Arsht and Flak, were fighting amongst themselves over a scrap of meat. Little did these two groups know they were drawing upon each other.

Arsht, anxiously awaiting, poached one of the king’s game to fill his belly while Flak took a nap.

In an unfortunate turn of events, Chrono stumbled upon the two goblins crushing them with a fiery wrath, consuming them completely, leaving nothing but ashes.

Returning late: Gavel, Mitch, and Snipe, Arsht and Flak’s comrades, entered the fray, but instead of avenging their fallen comrades Gavel and Mitch pledged their loyalty to Chrono in fear of their lives; a typical goblin tactic to stay alive. However, Snipe, a master of his craft, refused to side with Chrono and opposed him with great rebuke; alas, Chrono quickly dispatched Snipe with a searing spear of fire before he could plot any deviance. [There’s a lot going on here… is there anything amiss?]

The ensuing carnage, gruesome and brutal, did not go unheard. Clay, a heartless being, much like Chrono, happened to be flying over and came down to rest on his shoulder. [Can I use two consecutive appositives like this?]

Another flying beast, Miz-Nivvit who happened to be tracking Clay also circled the field above letting out an unruly shriek. Miz-Nivvit was a beast like no other, thrashed and grasped at the air, while continuing to circle.

Hearing his call for help, Hyperbola, Miz-Nivvit’s brother, swooped in to join the fray.

The two leered at Chrono and his unlikely companions, Maws gaping, ready to strike. Without hesitation the two descended in ravaging the group, leaving nothing but wreckage and corpses, before returning to the sky to search for their next prey.

I think I have everything labeled correctly aside from the crazy sentence in the middle. Feel free to comment on anything.

Random and... Well, just random

A short introduction on characters (no matter how random it may be):

Joe was a guy, but he wasn’t just any guy, he was the guy. A lot of other people wanted to be the guy. You could hear them saying, “I wanna be the guy too”, yet none had managed to reach Joe’s status. ALTHOUGH [AAAWWUBBIS] Joe was someone WHO [relative clause] they all wanted to be, no one had a chance. AS far as Joe was concerned, he was a lone gun – A ONE OF A KIND DUDE – destined to remain on top forever.

Our story begins in a small western setting town of Frontier Town. Frontier Town, not unlike many other small western towns of civilization, was a quaint place. It had a church, blacksmith, bank, saloon, and all the other essential of a western. BEFORE [AAAWWUBBIS] it was established, Frontier Town had once been a small exchange post for trading. The fact it had grown was due to its prime location and for the sake of convenience. “Since I’m not totally feeling the western frontier town vibe, let’s change the setting a little”, interrupted the narrator.

Narrator: Okay, now we’re going to take this story to the city… Yeah~~

We begin in The Suburb of metropolis: a place where men drink away their fears. It is here that we find Bob (forget about Joe, he isn’t cool anymore) your typical run of the mill guy.

Narrator: I believe a short introduction is needed for our new hero, Bob:

Bob is the kind of guy that has a personality big enough for four people, a real one man party. He often finds himself, like most people, -- hold on, bob wants to give his own introduction.

Bob: “I like movies, and sometimes I listen to music. Music tastes good! If I'm free I like to eat food, usually for my lunch or dinner, and sometimes breakfast if I'm awake. Have you ever eaten breakfast? I have. It’s great! I can cook. I can clean. I like doing things that are not boring.

Narrator (shoving Bob aside): Enough guy, I’m trying to tell a story man.

Where were we….? Ah yes, we were just at the part after Terrance slayed the dragon and had conquered the evil wizard bring peace and prosperity to all of the realms.

Narrator: “WHOMEVER [relative clause] has been messing with my notes is dead.” Well, since we have lost our spot, I will make something up.

(Movie voice over tone) In the city, he fought crime.

Narrator: Wait I was about to tell you guys about Batman; Dammit. Telling stories is harder than it seems. Wait, I’ve got it, here goes…

Mike, who was a very special man, was walking in the woods one fine day when he stumbled upon a very special stick. “What the!” he exclaimed “I must take this back home and add it to my stick collection”. So he bent down and picked up the stick, carefully as not to damage it, and carried on his walk. He walked further and further into the woods when, out of nowhere, a ninja attacked and stole the very special stick. Mike lamented over the loss of his special stick as the ninja disappeared into the thick woods with it. Mike was not one to give up easily though, he chased the ninja finally catching up to him savagely beating him to death. He retrieved his special stick from the pile of broken ninja and returned home shortly after his altercation. Upon adding this stick to his collection he realized that it was not really that special at all. It was very not as special as a stick and as awesome as his other sticks [parallelism] Crushed by his failure in finding a special stick for the day, Mike hung himself.

THE END

Narrator: There a much better tale for you.

.

There are many appositives in the piece. Instead of putting most the text in caps I left most lower case and instead noted AAAWWUBBIS and other single words with caps. Feel free to comment on anything.

What to say, what to say...

As always, Say what you’d like about anything. All my patterns are in CAPS to be easily found. Comments and questions welcomed.

THIS WEEK WAS A FUN ONE, YET AT THE SAME TIME STILL FULL OF IMPORTANT GRAMMAR DETAILS [,yet]. ALTHOUGH IT WAS A SLOW AT FIRST, ONE OF THE THINGS I ENJOYED THIS WEEK WAS THE WORD MAGNET SENTNECE CREATION [subordinating conjunction]. My group had the pleasure of getting the Shakespeare pack which allowed for some interesting sentence/word combos. BEFORE WE COULD EVEN OPEN THE BOX CONTAINING OUR WORDS, I HAD ALREADY FORMED IDEAS OF WHAT I COULD POSSIBLY WRITE USING IT’S CONTENTS [subordinating conjunction]. I GUESS IT STARTED OUT INNOCENT ENOUGH, BUT SOON ENOUGH  WE WERE ALL TRYING TO MAKE THE MOST WRONG SENTENCES WE COULD MANAGE [,but]. MY GROUP STARTED OUT WITH SOME BASICS, AND EVEN THEN WERE LEANING INTO HOW TWISTED WE COULD MAKE OUR SENTENCES [,and]. The hardest part about the assignment to me was picking through a pile of words to find the ones I needed to complete my thoughts. AFTER A WHILE AS WORDS BECAME MORE SPARCE, MAKING SENTENCES ACTUALLY SEEMED TO BECOME EASIER [subordinating conjunction]. All in all a entertaining exercise.

Beyond the sentences exercise and we did go over identifying clauses and did a little work on prepositions. I’M STILL A LITTLE SHAKEY ON MY PREPOSITIONS, FOR I AM STILL A STUDENT OF ENGLISH [,for].  I DON’T EVER EXPECT TO EVER FULLY MASTER ALL ENGLISH HAS TO OFFER, NOR DO I NEED TO FOR MY JOB ASPIRATIONS [,nor]. I DO HOWEVER NEED A GREATER UNDERSTANDING STILL, SO I WILL CONTINUE TO DO MY BEST TO GRASP AND UNDERSTAND THINGS I MAY NOT BE THE BEST AT [,so]. EITHER THAT, OR FAIL TRYING [,or]. I expect that through working with prepositions and more I’ll only better understand the concepts of English which will help me with my future in English. I’m still working on deciding how I can best apply grammar for speech beyond basic rules.

But enough about my random thoughts, let’s get back on track with what we’ve learned. One thing we’ve obviously went over this week was subordinating conjunctions and “fanboys”. I’ve personally been aware of “fanboys” since I was in middle school. I’m not sure about others, but this rule is something that seems to be consistently reviewed in nearly all my classes. It is something I’d have a hard time forgetting. Subordinating conjunctions are something I’m familiar with, but could not put a name to until now. I believe I have an understanding of their use, but there is always room for error. Maybe even one of the ones I’ve used in this paper even. In any event, there is always room for improvement. I do hope this brief blog did entertain, and am off.

More of what I've learned

Hello Reader, Once again – my paper is fair game to say anything you want about it. Think the grammar is wrong? Okay! Let me know. Think a joke is lame. Okay too! Say so if that’s important to you. Like something? I know I'm awesome already, but you can let me know anyway. I won’t get mad no matter how critical the response is. Enjoy.

From last week to this week I'm not sure how much more information I've taken in. Since I last wrote about Dora and her learning experiences in the first grade and my better understanding of punctuation, I've been exposed to the introduction to syntax. We’re still fresh into learning about syntax and there is not much I can say about it yet. I had pre-existing knowledge of the different parts of a sentence and English’s use of subject, object, verb [my re-attempt at last week’s pattern].

I have a pretty good understanding of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. I also understand the importance of syntax. When I'm bored I constantly peruse the internet and many time stumble upon English grammar jokes of many kinds. One of the most notable of these usually fun little bits while some of the others are syntax based. One thing I've seen head to do with the mixing of letters I'm not sure if this exactly relates to syntax, but is still interesting to me. Here it is:

"Aoccdrnig to a rseearchr at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit any porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the haumn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.”

Can you read it? Probably... Here is the translation

“According to a researcher at an English university, it doesn't matter in what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letter be at the right place. The rest can be a total mess and you can still read it without any problem. This is because the human mind does not read every letter by itself but the word as a whole. Is it true? Absolutely not. Apparently there are patterns that the brain looks for in order to process anything that our senses perceive. This text has enough of the normal English word patterns to be recognizable.”

CHEERS TO THE GUY WHO MADE THIS, HE SHOULD GIVE HIMSELF A HAND [reflective pronoun]. By the way, Microsoft Word really loves that mixed up jumble. BETWEEN SYNTAX AND PUNCTUATION I'VE LEARNED A BIT ABOUT POSSESSIVE NOUNS AND PROPER NOUNS, BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY THAT SYNTAX IS ONE COOL DUDE [personal pronoun object case]. Besides that, prepositions are the last thing we've started on and one thing which I'm still not completely sure about. I KEEP REMINDING MYSELF WHAT A PREPOSITION IS, BUT END UP FORGETTING AGAIN LATER ON [reflective pronoun], I GUESS WHEN PEOPLE TELL THEMSELVES THINGS REPEATEDLY TO REMEMBER THEM IT DOES NOT ALWAYS WORK [reflective pronoun].

Things I've learned

Hello Reader,

Just so you know – my paper is fair game to say anything you want about it. Think the grammar is wrong? Okay! Let me know. Think a joke is lame. Okay too! Say so if that’s important to you. Like something? I know I'm awesome already, but you can let me know anyway. I won’t get mad no matter how critical the response is. Enjoy.

So far this semester I've learned about the different styles of writing and punctuation that are evolving, yet still have no solid set rule. It doesn't come down to WHOSE [possessive pronouns] is better, THEIRS [possessive pronouns] or YOURS [possessive pronouns]; rather it is still almost a stylistic difference until the majority decides to follow one rule over the other. From what we've discussed in class it seems an apostrophe following an “s” instead of an added apostrophe “s” is the winner in the VHS/Beta like competition. However, as of right now there are still occasional publications that let the added apostrophe “s” such as Katie Holmes’s rather than Katie Holmes’ slide. This particular apostrophe rule seems to be coming to an end agreeing that apostrophes will follow the letter “s” rather than adding an additional “s”.

AS A STUDENT OF ENGLISH, I PERSONALLY FOLLOW THE RULE OF WRITING MY APOSTROPHES FOLLOWING “S” RATHER THAN ADDING AN APOSTROPHE AND “S”; AS A READER, I STILL SEE THE ADDING OF AN ADDITIONAL “S” IN BIG NAME PUBLICATIONS [Parallel sentences conjoined by semicolon, with introductory phrases, with comma after the phrase]. If I remember correctly, my magazine I read articles out of for the class project was People. My example of Katie Holmes’s was one of the uses of apostrophes my group found. ITS [possessive pronouns] editor either missed the mistake or agrees with that style of use. I feel as though the accepted manner of mode for this punctuation might be a solid rule in the future, but for now it seems both manners are currently being accepted as correct. But as with most English rules there can only be one; such is the way of the highlander.. err English grammar rules.

Outside of grammar rules we've been reading about an imaginary first grader named Dora. I can’t remember how I first learned to write. I've always assumed I've just been pro at it. But seriously, when I think back I can vaguely remember working on my writing. I can probably best remember assignments I've been assigned the last year or two. Any earlier and assignments I have worked on are a blur, like a night of too much tequila. The problem with this is that when I try and compare to the examples I've been reading, I can’t as easily relate to them if I can’t remember my own experiences from then clearly. I assume my learning went something like the examples in the Dora article, but there’s no way to be sure which of the two, free thought or worksheets, I experienced in school.

Aside from Dora, I've been introduced to many ideas of how children learn to use punctuation. My opinion is that the children having free reign over their stories and punctuation within a set track to keep them learning correct use is a good style of learning. I feel things are more exciting with a little mystery. Some may disagree saying mystery is annoying, but when you’re a kid discovering things is fun. From my own experience, taking tests and working on worksheets is nowhere as beneficial as making your own mistakes. If someone can learn to effectively correct their own grammar mistakes they can ever evolve to become a better writer.

The last thing I've learned so far is that class ends at 4:05. It seems that even short of 4 o'clock people are PACKING UP, GETTING UP, LEAVING [List without and]. I have faith we’ll get this one down some day.

Cheers